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Gay Jesus, Woman Christ, and More

Art
That Dares:
Gay Jesus, Woman Christ, and More

By
Kittredge Cherry AndroGyne
Press, pb, 96 pages, $38.95

Kitt Cherry’s newest creation is wonderful, mind-blowing, and
beautiful. White Crane readers will recognize her name from previous
mentions of her equally mind-blowing novel, Jesus in Love, which
presents an autobiography (i.e., told in the first-person) of Jesus
Christ as a modern psychologically sophisticated and sexually aware
ego-person. Cherry is a lesbian former MCC minister, now in
semi-retirement, and author of a book for young people on coming out
and a guide to lesbian and gay worship and ceremonies. She is also an
art historian. And it is in this last identity that she has collected
paintings, photographs and graphics that depict what might be called
“alternative” versions of Christian imagery.

This
book is effectively a “catalogue” of an exhibition she mounted at the
JHS Gallery in Taos, New Mexico, as part of the National Festival of
Progressive Spiritual Art, in May 2007. It includes beautifully
reproduced images of some eleven artists, along with in-depth articles
about each artist and explanations of the themes in the selected
examples. The subtitle reveals just why “explanations” are in order:
“Gay Jesus, Woman Christ, and More.” The introduction contains an
account of Cherry’s motivation in searching out this truly “visionary”
style of artistic expression and an intelligent discussion of the
meaning of the oh-so-religious-sounding term “blasphemy.”

You
can imagine she’s had that epithet hurled at her!

Her
“blasphemy” is so honest, so respectful, visionary, and inspiring that
it becomes a kind of new religion, a Christianity not stuck in literal
old stories, but alive with imagery meaningful to us today—not the
Jesus of history 2000 years old, but the mystical Jesus of the present
NOW, alive in human beings today, suffering and resurrecting through
the struggles of modern life and of sexual and gender liberation.

Cherry
explains that blasphemy refers to speech intended to transgress or
express contempt for central religious beliefs, in that sense, the idea
is to protect the status quo religion and culture. But in effect,
blasphemy is what wakes people up and forces them to rethink their
unquestioned cultural beliefs and myths. In that sense, blasphemy is
the truly spiritual tool for transforming consciousness. Jesus Christ,
after all, was put to death for blasphemy.

I
suppose not all blasphemous speech or art wakes people to the true
meaning of religion, but the very fact that a believer would feel so
threatened that he or she would hurl accusations at another of this sin
ought to tell them something about their own precarious hold on truth.
It’s like the Jungian notion of “the shadow” that what upsets you
the most—and the most compulsively in other people—is a reflection of
traits in yourself you are trying to protect yourself from recognizing
and admitting. Being upset by somebody else’s beliefs one disagrees
with is some sort of sign of one’s own skepticism. And so the more the
beliefs seem meaningless, the more fiercely they have to defended.

"From Michelangelo to Mantegna, Piero Della
Francesca to Paul Gauguin, images
of Jesus Christ have offended, delighted, outraged, and inspired the
devout. For each controversial image, the sacred and profane become
intermixed
in new ways, challenging viewers to rethink their own imaginary history
of
religion, spirituality, and sexuality. Kittredge Cherry has performed a
great
service for our contemporary age, reminding us again what we hold
sacred and
profane, and how our old categories might be reimagined."

The
sinfulness of blasphemy is based on the first of the Ten Commandments:
Thou shalt make no graven images. Jesus, of course, transformed those
commandments, reducing them to two: love God and love your neighbor.
And as Christianity moved into Europe in its early missionary days, it
dropped the objection to graphic images altogether. That was a desert
thing! Nomads--Jews and later Muslims--objected to depictions of God.
Greek, Roman and European cultures exulted in creating representations
of God. Indeed, during the Middle Ages, the stained glass windows of
the great cathedrals were the catechisms by which the religious stories
were portrayed and promulgated. The imagery made the stories more
real--and memorable--and provided insight into their meaning.

That’s
exactly what the image, say, of a female Christ--like that of acrylic
artist Jill Ansell--does: causes the viewer to think through the
contradiction and to understand “Christ” as a mystical reality which
necessarily includes both male and female since humankind includes both
male and female. The image of a woman rising from the tomb triumphant
reminds us vividly that the Christian message about resurrection
includes the feminine principle as well as the masculine.

Depictions
of Jesus are often “homoerotic” in that he is prototypically shown near
naked and suffering the afflictions of the flesh. Oil painter F.
Douglas Blanchard portrays Jesus as a modern gay man in modern clothing
being brutalized by police and by fag-baiting protestors. The
disturbing, but ultimately glorious, series of twenty-four painting, of
which five are included in the book, force the viewer to consider that
anti-gay violence in the name of religion is an exact parallel to the
violence done against Jesus and which Christians believe was salvific
for us all.

With
paint on plexiglass Alex Donis produced faux stainedglass windows
showing improbable combinations in an intimate kiss--John Kennedy and
Fidel Castro, the Pope and Gandhi, Adolf Hitler and a Holocaust
survivor--to call into question conventional dualistic categories.
Reproduced in the book are the kisses of Jesus and the Hindu god Rama
and Mary Magdalene and the Virgen de Guadalupe. Several of Donis’
creations were destroyed by vandals in protest against the exhibit in
San Francisco in 1997.

Perhaps
the most familiar artwork in the book is that of Franciscan brother
Robert Lentz. His modern day Greek Orthodox-styled icons--of both
traditional holy figures and modern political and cultural
characters--have been distributed through progressive and GLBTI
bookstores and card shops for years. The icon of Harvey Milk, Martyr is
a national gay treasure. (Since Lentz returned to the Order later in
his life, he’s been forbidden for marketing the more controversial of
his icons, but they are still available through his previous
distributor.) And the icons of Jesus as AIDS sufferer by openly gay
ex-Jesuit priest William Hart McNichols will also be familiar. They’ve
appeared in the gay press.

That’s
to point out only five of the eleven artists. All the images in Art
That Dares are equally striking and transforming of ideas about the
meaning of religious iconography.

The
book is liable to be dismissed and deprecated by the Religious Right.
Some of the people who really need to see this material will never lay
eyes on it. But now it’s out there. Kitt Cherry’s work has already
gotten notice and condemnation that ironically has brought needed
attention.

This
is a lovely book. And a very neat idea! I urge readers to seek it out.

Toby Johnson, PhDis
author of nine books: three non-fiction books that apply the wisdom of
his
teacher and "wise old man," Joseph Campbell to modern-day social and
religious problems, four gay genre novels that dramatize spiritual
issues at the heart of gay identity, and two books on gay men's
spiritualities and the mystical experience of homosexuality and editor
of a collection of "myths" of gay men's consciousness.

Johnson's book
GAY
SPIRITUALITY: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of
Human Consciousness won a Lambda Literary Award in 2000.

His GAY
PERSPECTIVE: Things Our [Homo]sexuality Tells Us about the Nature
of God and the Universe was nominated for a Lammy in 2003. They remain
in
print.